I Loaded the Occult Panel

People sat in the first three rows of the lecture hall.

Mr. West sat in the center of the first row. He was in his early fifties, his graying hair combed with meticulous care.

Beside him sat a female teacher Richard did not recognize, wearing thin-rimmed glasses and holding a pen.

Seven or eight upperclassmen were scattered across the second row, the grade marks on their uniform cuffs showing they were a year ahead of Richard.

One of the boys had an arm draped over the back of his chair, looking on with the amusement of a spectator.

Lillian sat in the corner of the third row.

She blinked as Richard walked in, then immediately returned her gaze to her notebook.

Richard made a quick mental assessment.

The turnout was bigger than he had expected. Mr. Holland had not mentioned there would be an audience, which was probably deliberate.

The official venue for the Cicero Cup would have hundreds of people in the audience.If he could not handle a dozen people, going to the Imperial Capital would be a waste of time.

”All right, Williams. Head up there.”

Holland sat down in the first row and nodded toward the podium.

Richard left his bag on a chair by the door and stepped up to the podium.

Standing at the podium and facing the room, he took in everyone’s expressions.

Mr. West sat with his hands folded over his knees, his expression placid, like a man waiting for a play he was not particularly eager to see.

The female teacher—who Richard guessed might teach rhetoric or public speaking—had her pen poised over her paper, ready to take notes.

Some of the upperclassmen were whispering among themselves, while others leaned their heads back, their attitude clear: let’s get this over with.

Lillian sat by the window in the third row, the light illuminating half her face.

She turned to a fresh page in her notebook.

Mr. Holland had told him that Lillian was the original choice, but she got so nervous on stage that she could not speak without a script.

Passing the spot to Richard must have been a relief for her.

Even so, she probably still wanted to see what level her replacement was at.

”First Oration, paragraphs one through four,” Holland said, outlining the scope. ”A complete delivery, starting from the top.”

It was the most classic, yet most difficult, passage.

It was Cicero’s face-to-face denunciation of Catiline in the Senate. The opening four paragraphs were the climax of the entire speech, and the text that had been studied inside and out for over a thousand years.

Richard took a breath.

The clarity in his lungs from the [Breathing] skill allowed the inhaled air to reach deeper than before.

His chest expanded, his diaphragm dropped, and his voice readied:

”Quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra?”

(When, O Catiline, do you mean to cease abusing our patience?)

The rhythm was hidden in the meter, the alternating long and short syllables forming a natural drumbeat.

When Cicero wrote those lines, he had arranged the word order specifically for acoustic effect.

”Quem ad finem sese effrenata iactabit audacia?”

(To what end will your unbridled audacity flaunt itself?)

In the second row, the boy with his arm draped over his chair pulled it back.

”Nihilne te nocturnum praesidium Palat... (middle parallelisms omitted) nihil horum ora vultusque moverunt?”

(Does not the nocturnal guard on Palatine Hill move you; do not the watches of the city move you; does not the fear of the people move you; does not the gathering of all good men move you; does not this most fortified place for holding the senate move you; do not the faces and expressions of all those present move you?)

This sentence was a textbook example of Cicero’s parallel rhetoric:

Six repetitions of ”nihil”—nothing—layered over one another: from the patrol to the guards, from the people to the honorable men, from the venue to the faces of everyone seated there.

Richard made an adjustment in his delivery: he slightly drew out the pause between each ”nihil,” allowing the repetition to gather force.

It was a technique he had figured out during Mr. Holland’s tutoring.

Parallelism could not be read in a flat, straightforward tone, or it would sound no different from reading a list.

True parallelism was like the tide, each wave cresting higher than the last. When the final wave receded, the silence left behind carried more weight than sound.

Mr. West’s posture had not changed, but his fingers moved from his knees to rest on the table.

The pencil in Lillian’s hand stopped moving.

She had only opened her notebook to keep a record, ready to note if he made any obvious memorization errors or pronunciation mistakes.

But four sentences in, she realized she was in no position to judge him.

She set her pencil down on her notebook, folded her hands together, and began to truly listen.

Richard continued into the second and third paragraphs.

As the fourth paragraph ended, he brought his gaze back down to a scratch along the front edge of the podium.

After a brief silence in the classroom, Mr. West was the first to applaud, beating Holland by half a beat.

The female teacher clapped a few times before lowering her head to write in her notebook.

The casual posture of the upperclassmen had completely vanished.

Lillian clapped along with them.

Before arriving, she had anticipated only two possibilities.

The first was that Richard would perform poorly, confirming her judgment that giving him the spot was a waste.

The second was that he would perform adequately—able to recite the whole thing, but roughly. That was also within her expectations.

There was no third possibility. At the very least, she had not thought her classmate capable of it.

Memorizing the text was not unusual, and accurate pronunciation could be achieved through hard work.

But a speech was not just reciting from memory. That kind of control over rhythm and breathing could not be trained in a few weeks.

When had the student at the bottom of the class become like this?

She could not find an answer.

”Williams,” Mr. West said.

”Sir.”

”There is a minor issue with your handling of the parallelism,” Mr. West pointed out incisively.

”Of the six ’nihil’s, you built up through the first five, and suppressing the last one was a nice touch.

”However, the interval between the third and fourth was too even, which made it lose a bit of tension to the ear.

”I suggest pausing just a fraction longer after the third. Make the audience think the repetition is over, so when the fourth rises, the impact will be far greater.”

Richard replayed the rhythm of his delivery in his head.

An expert’s ear really was different. Mr. West lived up to his position as head of the department, instantly pinpointing a flaw Richard had not noticed himself.

”I understand. Thank you, sir.”

Mr. West nodded, stood up, and said something to Holland.

Richard’s hearing was sharp enough to catch the words: ”He’s worth a try.”

Once everyone had cleared out, only Holland and Richard remained in the classroom.

Holland brought his teacup to his lips and took a sip.

”West is a harsh critic. If you can get a ’worth a try’ out of him, take it as high praise.”

”You flatter me, sir.”

”I’m not flattering you; you’re just improving too fast.”

Holland set his teacup down on the podium and studied him, the astonishment in his gaze stronger than ever before.

A student at the bottom of the class had brought his Latin up to this level in just two weeks.

The word talent was too slight. He had taught for twenty years and had seen plenty of talented students.

Talent manifested as a high starting point, rapid learning, and few mistakes.

But Richard’s case was different.

His starting point had been rock bottom. Two weeks ago, he was still stumbling over basic conjugations.

Yet his rate of improvement followed an accelerating curve. It was as if a steam engine had suddenly been installed in his brain, his output doubling by the day.

Was this what it meant for things to finally click?

Holland did not pry into the reasons.

Whatever the cause, questioning it would be superfluous. A breakthrough was a good thing.

”Come with me. I have something to give you.”